Steamboat Willie (episode)

Plot
Mickey Mouse pilots a river steamboat, suggesting that he himself is the captain. He cheerfully whistles "Steamboat Bill" and sounds the boat's three whistles. Soon the real captain appears (Pete) and angrily orders Mickey off the bridge. Mickey makes a Bronx cheer at Pete, and then Pete kicks him, making him fall down the stairs, slip on a bar of soap on the boat's deck and land in a bucket of water. A parrot makes fun of him, and Mickey throws the bucket over the bird.

Now piloting the steamboat himself, Pete bites off some chewing tobacco and spits into the wind. The spit flies backward and rings the boat's bell. Amused by this Pete spits again, but it hits him in the face.

The steamboat makes a stop at "Podunk Landing" to pick up a cargo of various livestock. Just as they set off again, Minnie appears, running to catch the boat before it leaves. Mickey does not see her in time, but she runs after the boat along the shore and Mickey takes her on board using the cargo crane.

Landing on deck, Minnie accidentally drops a guitar and some sheet music for the song "Turky in the Straw" which are eaten by a goat. The two mice use the goat's body as a phonograph which they play by turning the animal's tail like a crank. Mickey uses various objects on the boat as percussion accompaniment and "plays" the animals like musical instruments.  

Finally an unamused Captain Pete appears and puts Mickey to work peeling potatoes. In the potato bin, the same parrot from before appears in the port hole and mocks Mickey again. The mouse throws a partially peeled potato at him, knocking him into the river below. The film ends with Mickey laughing at the sound of the bird struggling in the water.

Background
According to Roy O. Disney, Walt Disney was inspired to create a sound cartoon after watching The Jazz Singer (1927). Disney had intended for Mickey Mouse to be the new star character to replace Oswald the Lucky Rabbit after he lost the rights to the character to Charles Mintz. However the first two Mickey Mouse films produced, silent versions of Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, had failed to impress audiences and gain a distributor. Disney believed that adding sound to a cartoon would greatly increase its appeal.

Steamboat Willie was not the first cartoon with synchronized sound. Dave and Max Fleischer's Inkwell Studios had earlier produced seven sound cartoons, part of the Song Car-Tunes which started in May 1924. However the Song Car-Tunes failed to keep the sound fully synchronized, while Steamboat Willie was produced using a click track to keep his musicians on the beat. As little as one month before Steamboat Willie was released, Paul Terry's released Dinner Time which also used a soundtrack, but Dinner Time was not a financial success.

In June 1927, producer Pat Powers made an unsuccessful takeover bid for Lee DeForest's Phonofilm Corporation. In the aftermath, Powers hired a former DeForest technician, William Garrity, to produce a cloned version of the Phonofilm system, which Powers dubbed "Powers Cinephone". By then, DeForest was in too weak a financial position to mount a legal challenge against Powers for patent infringement. Powers convinced Disney to use Cinephone for Steamboat Willie before Powers and Disney had a falling-out over money, and over Powers hiring away Disney animator Up Iwerks in 1930.